


Thank You, Come Again

by VinculumStellarum



Category: Pop'n Music (Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24330355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinculumStellarum/pseuds/VinculumStellarum
Summary: It's fun to make small talk at the convenience store every now and then, isn't it~ ?





	Thank You, Come Again

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short little thing I wrote a week or so ago about Leon and Yusha interacting at Yu Mart. I honestly don't even remember why I wrote it at this point, but it was fun to work on.  
> There's implied MZD/Mr. KK in here but it's so minor that I don't think it's necessary to tag for it, though I might go back and tag it? I dunno  
> Also indenting things on AO3 /sucks/ so I think from here on out I'm gonna leave it be. Hope you'll understand.

_ Ding-a-ling~ _

It wasn’t much to gawk at, but something about the simple chime that sounded any time someone entered the local Yu Mart still managed to mesmerize Leon each visit. It was a humble sound, characterized by its retro-sounding pulse lead and victorious melody. Each time he’d gone in, whether it was to grab a bag of chips after work or to pick up packs of soda per MZDad’s request, it felt like he’d managed to triumph victorious over a weak enemy, ready to take on the next.

Much like its entrance jingle, the convenience store itself was simple. It wasn’t a very large place, but it was clean enough; the walls were white with striped red highlights, and the tiled slate floor still squeaked if you rubbed your shoes on it hard enough. The aisles were short and sweet, packed mostly with various kinds of sweets and other junk food, and in the back lined against the wall were several freezers of bottled drinks. Huddled near the entrance behind a counter that seemed almost too cramped to fit anything more was a young man working the till, though since it was late and visitors often didn’t come at this time of night, he’d resorted to staring blankly at the counter’s surface, tapping his fingers against it as a fidget of sorts. While it wasn’t the kind of place that made much of an impression, maybe it was for the better; it wasn’t meant to be flashy, anyways.

Tonight, Leon’s mission was simple: go in, get a bottle of chocolate milk and some chips (MZDad recommended spicy nacho cheese flavour, so he figured he’d give them a shot), pay, and continue walking home. He’d already done the first step, and the whole process would take maybe five minutes if he was efficient enough, but what was the point of rushing? It was only him in the store besides the sole employee, and said store was open 24/7, so it wasn’t like he’d get kicked out if he took too long. Hoping not to disturb the cashier’s peaceful, rhythmic tapping, he strolled quietly through the nearest aisle to seek out his self-reward and stopped at the wall of coolers, where he stared longingly at the cartons of chocolate milk inside. He’d grab one later, he decided, when there was room in the fridge for it. A small bottle was more than enough for tonight.

After collecting his groceries (if they could be called that), Leon made his way to the till, though he felt bad that he’d have to snap the cashier out of whatever trance he’d gotten himself into in order to finish his mission. Positioning himself in front of the granite blue counter, he stood quietly for a moment, contemplating his options, before deciding how he’d get the man’s attention.

“Excuse me, sorry,” Leon said quietly. The man jerked up almost immediately with a surprised expression, caught off-guard by the sudden customer in his presence. His headband loosely flopped around as he tried to regain his composure, which he quickly pulled off and put back on to keep his hair out of his eyes; eyeing his surroundings to get a feel for what he was dealing with, he assumed his position at the till, settling back in. Upon observing the employee’s attire—something about the clashing red and yellow on his sweater and his suspiciously pajama-like pants threw Leon off, he thought retail workers had to dress more professionally—he took note of the man’s name tag, Yusha.

“Sorry, sorry. How can I help?” From the way Yusha acted, no one would have been able to guess what had happened only moments ago. Perhaps a bit too used to the setting, he plucked at the keyboard in front of him almost mechanically, readying the POS for the upcoming transaction. 

“Uh, just these two, please,” Leon replied, pushing the items he’d picked out gently towards the man behind the counter. Yusha picked them up and ran them under the barcode scanner, although it took a few tries before the bottled chocolate milk came up on the monitor. He figured it lagged out, because moments later, the same listing for milk popped up seven times in a row all at once, inflating the total.

“This happens all the time, don’t sweat it,” Yusha sighed, deleting the extra entries and looking up to make sure his customer wasn’t bothered. However, he hadn’t expected to recognize the patron in front of him, or rather, to recognize him based on others he knew somewhat… “Wait, you’re the one who’s in here with Mr. KK sometimes, aren’t you?”

“Yeah! He’s one of my dads!” Leon’s eyes lit up, but Yusha’s only seemed to widen, as if he were in some kind of disbelief. On occasion, if the both of them were free and it wasn’t too late, the father and son would go on nighttime walks together, which sometimes included going to the convenience store to bring home snacks or other goodies. A fond memory surfaced where the two had bought several containers of confetti cake ice cream as a surprise for MZD, and the chameleon hooded boy smiled, hoping he’d have the chance to do that again soon.

“Really? Huh, that’s cool. How’s he been, do you know?” Yusha couldn’t help but be curious about the man; he’d seen him around every now and then besides when the duo visited, usually whenever KK wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes, and wondered what he did in his spare time.

“He’s been pretty good, I guess. The station changed his shifts again, so I don’t really get to see him for too long unless it’s on the weekends, but he’s been doing alright.”

“The station?”

“Yeah, Tune Street-Museca?”

“Oh, huh. I don’t usually have a lot of business out that way.” Yusha couldn’t say he was the best at small talk—usually, he preferred customers left as quickly as they came—but he was bored out of his mind, and there had only been a handful of other customers during his shift so far tonight. If he chatted with the cigarette guy’s kid for a bit, even if just for a little, maybe his shift would go a bit faster. Why the hell did he agree to take night shifts again?

“It’s fun out there, you should check it out sometime~ Gets kinda dangerous out there later on, though, so if you wanna visit downtown, earlier is much better.” 

“I guess. You go there often?”

“Well, yeah. Dad works there, so sometimes I’ll hop on the train to see him. Figure if I can at least say hi, it’ll make his day a little better. He gets a lot of bad customers.”

“Bad as in…?”

“Assholes. He tells me stories sometimes, and I hear him telling stories to my other dad sometimes too.”

“Ahh, can’t forget those types. We get more of them here than you might think,” Yusha said, thinking back to three months back when a drunk woman had pulled down a shelf and screamed to talk to the manager during his shift, all because Yu Mart had run out of cherry flavoured cough drops. He shuddered at the thought of having to deal with someone like that again, lucky that his coworkers usually took the brunt of the bad customers.

“Doesn’t surprise me. I get bad people at work too, but I’m not usually working with the crowds, so I don’t have to deal with them myself very often.”

“Huh… well, that’s good, I guess.”

“Yeah, I’m grateful~”

Yusha looked down for a moment, unsure how to continue the conversation, before he caught a glimpse of the monitor in the corner of his eye and suddenly remembered what he was supposed to be doing. “...Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Your total is $5, how would you like to pay?”

“Just cash today,” Leon replied, rummaging through his wallet and handing the cashier a bill. Upon receiving it, Yusha opened the cash register and carelessly shoved it in with the rest of the $5 bills, before dropping the items into a small plastic bag and handing it to the boy.

“Thank you, have a good day!” Yusha said, a hint of song in his voice. As he saw Leon turn away and head towards the exit, he remembered something and hesitantly called for him. “Wait, before you go, can you…”

“Yeah?” Leon yelled back.

“Say hi to Mr. KK—I mean, your dad, for me, please.”

“Sure can! Wonder if he’ll recognize you.” The same victorious chime that played when Leon had entered rang again as he departed, leaving him satisfied. He looked forward to telling his dad about what had happened when he came home, smiling as he pulled the chocolate milk from his bag and cracked open the lid.


End file.
